"The Clinic," an acute care medical clinic offered by Baxter Regional Medical Center inside the Walmart Supercenter, is 1 year old and financially self-sustaining.

During a recent conference call with Walmart officials, BRMC's Chief Operating Officer Rudy Darling and BRMC Foundation Director Barney Larry said they learned "The Clinic" performs at or near to top of Walmart-housed medical clinics in terms of first-year volume.

"We knew going into this, if we could see 19 patients a day we would break even," Darling said. "At the end of our first year, we're there. We see on average 19 patients a day."

Darling said BRMC's clinic clearly serves a niche in the medical services sector of the Twin Lakes Area that did not fit well into the scheme of traditional medical services available before the clinic.

The Clinic is a new medical venue, after traditional doctor office hours, for removal of fish hooks stuck in anglers, swimmer's ear, poison ivy flare-ups and tick or spider bites that take quick turns for the worse and an array of other maladies that bring people to doctors' offices. "If a space opened up on either side of us here, we would seriously consider expanding and adding another practitioner," Darling said.

Pat Drengacz, 78, discovered The Clinic in the checkout line and has sought treatment at the clinic four times in the past year, most recently for an angry tick bite.

"It started to look bad and had a big red circle around it," Drengacz said. "Stan (her husband), took one look at it and said, 'We better go.'" "It's comforting to me just to have a place like this to go to," Drengacz said.

Jenny Gray, clinic manager since October, said the Drengaczes' situation is a common one.

"It seems like the baby's earache always starts after 5 on Friday," Gray said. She said 50 percent of the clinic's patients are visitors to the area. Resort owners and the BRMC emergency room have helped direct patients to the clinic for services that do not require hospital emergency room services.

Darling said The Clinic may have found the top of its service level on Sunday, June 19. The clinic treated 31 patients that day.

"That's about the top of what we can do here with one practitioner," Darling said.

Linda Prebble, the clinicand#39;s nurse practitioner since April, said the work is demanding but rewarding.

"We're the only game in town on the weekends," Prebble said. "And so many of our patients are really not feeling well when we see them." Being able to treat the problem and prescribe medicines to make patients feel better is rewarding work, Prebble said.

Darling said success with the clinic and other services like it are a bright spot in the hospital services sector.

The sector has struggled since 2007 with a generally difficult economy and diminished reimbursements for services from Medicare and Medicaid program.

BRMC has struggled, too, with volume and related revenue concerns since 2007. BRMC has down-sized staff through attrition. Darling said BRMC's current attrition plan has nearly run its course. The clinic is open daily 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

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